Trai plans ‘clearing house’ to smooth mobile number portability

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has said rejection of number porting requests by telecom operators creates ''dissatisfaction and frustration'' among subscribers and has suggested a mechanism to resolve this.

To curb rejection of portability requests, Trai on Wednesday proposed to enhance the role of a MNP clearing house which will have all the details of subscribers required for completion of the process.

Trai has issued draft guidelines for MNP amendments and invited comments by stakeholders till 31 August. Mobile Number Portability (MNP) is a facility that allows a mobile user to keep the same mobile number while switching between operators. Full MNP – the ability to retain one's number while switching to any operator in any mobile circle in the country - was implemented from July 2015.

A unique porting code (UPC) is issued to mobile subscriber when he places request for MNP to transfer his or her connection to some other network but the recipient operator (RO), on whose network the subscriber wants to move, does not get to know details like the bill outstanding, validity of UPC, etc., that are crucial for completing the process.

The regulator said analysis of MNP report from April 2016 to March 2017 indicates that average rejection of porting requests by telecom operators in all categories was about 11.16 per cent and rejections on the grounds of 'UPC mismatch' and 'UPC expired' constituted about 40 per cent of the total rejections.

The rejection may be due to wrong submission or incorrect entry of the UPC content by the potential subscriber at the point of sale (PoS) of RO.

"Presently, there is no mechanism available with the RO to verify the content and status of expiry date of UPC. Therefore, it is proposed that a process may be added to the existing MNP process wherein content of UPC and date of validity of UPC along with the mobile number are shared by donor operator with respective MNP Clearing House (MCH)," Trai said in the draft paper.

The recipient operator can then send verification request with the mobile number and UPC to the MCH who in turn shall respond back instantly to RO conveying acceptance or rejection of the porting request on the basis of the content and date of validity of the UPC, generated for the particular mobile number, the draft said.

In case of outstanding due, the donor operator can trigger disconnection request of subscribers connection and at present, the recipient operator or MCH has no mechanism to know about outstanding dues, bill date and notice served to the customer.

"The Authority is of the opinion that in the revised process, the DO shall communicate the above (bill related) details to RO via MCH. The MCH shall retain a copy of such information and timestamp them in its database for future reference. The entire process is expected to be fruitful in ensuring the appropriate timely action on the part of RO," Trai said.

Trai has invited public comments on the proposed MNP draft paper by 31 August.